Durham, N.H., April 20, 2017 -- The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of broad-based testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry, and UNHInnovation (UNHI) are excited to announce they will be hosting the upcoming NASA Space Apps Challenge on April 29-30, 2017 at 21 Madbury Road, right off the UNH Durham, NH campus. The Challenge is open to high school seniors, all college level students and young professionals. This two-day event is considered to be one of the world's largest hackathon events in over 170 locations, across 6 continents. The Challenge brings collaboration amongst students, colleagues, friends, and family to solve perplexing challenges in new and unexpected ways.
The NASA Space Apps Challenge is an international hackathon which occurs simultaneously over 48 hours in cities around the world. The goal is to have people join together to share ideas and engage with open data to address real-world problems on Earth and within outer space. This year, the competition theme is Earth Science, supporting NASA’s missions to monitor Earth's vital signs from land, air and space. Challenges represent NASA mission priorities in human-environment interactions, global water cycles, natural disasters, ecological systems and the mysteries of the planet.
Year round, NASA helps shed light on Earth’s many components including oceans, terrains, and living things. With unique vantage points in air and in space, NASA collects high-quality data covering all parts of the planet over time to tell us more about the world we live in, and to predict the future processes on Earth.
This year participants are asked to develop mobile applications, software, hardware, data visualizations and platform solutions that could contribute to space exploration missions and help improve life on Earth. Participants gain experience using robotics, data visualization, hardware, design and more.
Participants will be judged on creativity, sustainability, and potential impact of their project upon Earth Science. Based upon their results, participants will have the option of moving onto the Global level, where they will have the opportunity of winning badges to see a NASA launch. Last year’s winners had front row seats to the OSIRIS-Rex asteroid mission launch.
The UNH-IOL has partnered with the NASA Space Apps Challenge for the past 3 years. The event invites engineers, coders, makers, artists and storytellers to connect over mission-related challenges. The growing Space Apps community represents the core of NASA's Open Innovation Initiative. Together, participants have developed thousands of open-source solutions.
NASA Space Apps Durham is hosted by Caleigh MacPherson, a NASA Solar System Ambassador and the New Hampshire High Tech Council’s TechWoman of the Year.
To learn more, visit the NASA Space Apps Durham Page or follow the Space Apps’ Durham Twitter and Facebook pages.
About the UNH-IOL
The UNH-IOL is dedicated to being the world's premier data networking resource. Beginning in 1988, the UNH-IOL has built a multimillion dollar testbed and developed testing solutions to help companies efficiently and cost effectively deliver products to market. UNH-IOL’s services fit the needs of the market, while maintaining broad, comprehensive interoperability and conformance testing of networking, data, telecommunications, and storage products. The industry relies on UNH-IOL’s extensive staff experience, standards-bodies participation, 28,000+ square foot facility, and 100+ students who represent the future of interoperability testing and verification.
About UNHInnovation
UNHInnovation (UNHI) advocates for, manages, and promotes UNH’s intellectual assets. UNHI strives to create partnerships between UNH and the business community and is responsible for commercializing UNH innovations and supporting university-based start-up companies.
www.iol.unh.edu | Twitter @UNH_IOL | Facebook @UNHIOL
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Organization Contact:
UNH-IOL
Mara Bernazzani, +1-603-862-0901
Communications Coordinator
mbernazzani@iol.unh.edu
www.iol.unh.edu